Book Review: No longer human by Osamu Dazai

 Semi-autobiographical book 

Book review: In War and Famine, Missionaries in China's Honan Province in the 1940s by Erleen J. Christensen

 A memoir by a missionary's daughter on her father (a missionary doctor in Henan province) and missionaries in Henan during 1940's Japanese occuputions of Henan. There is a small part that told the work of OSS (a precursor to CIA) in Henan Tantouchen. One of my neighbor's father was in the book as a OSS radio communicator.

Book Review: Bad samaritans, The myth of free trade and the secret history of capitalism by Ha-joon Chang

Since Reagon and Thatcher TINA (there is no alternative), neo-liberalism aka free-market free-trade economics have been a role model for decades, and the rightousness of neo-liberalism is further fanned by academics like Frances Fukuyama and writer like Thomas Friedman. But silver bullet neo-liberalism doesn't yield results it promised in developing countries adopting it, most of the initiatives World Bank/IMF/WTO implemented in developing countries didn't promote growth and economic prosperity. Instead countries like Japan, Korea and China who adopted policies that counter neo-liberalism actually produce sustainable growth.

This book is a look at globalization and neo-liberalism from the viewpoints of the developing(poor) countries rather that of developed(rich) nations , where infant industries protection are at odds with WTO/World Bank/IMF mandates on free trade and free market. A much naunced look at how China achieve the sustainable growth can be seen with Lin Yifu's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g6noa-Zgbo&t=868s, which is a viewpoint from China.

A debunking of Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the olive tree

Re-discovering Daniel Defoe's A Plan for English Commerce, a long lost treatise on true reasons UK became world dominant manufacturing power, not by free trade and free market, but by selective protectionism and high tariff

Neo-liberalism = Free trade and free market, Adam Smith

Civil war was a battle between Southern free-trade/low tariff slave owner vs Northern protectionist of infant industry/high tariff industrialist

"Despite being the most protectionist country in the world throughout the 19th century and right up to the 1920s, the US was also the fastest growing economy

Countries cited in the book: Britian, US, Singapore, Korea, Japan, Finland

So Trumpism may get a point on raising tariff.

Problems with SOE: Principal-Agent problem+Free-rider problem+Soft budget constraint

Success stories of SOE: Singapore airline, Korean's POSCO

allocative deadweight loss

Quotes

 "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me." -- Martin Niemöller

Book Review: The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un by Anna Fifield

 

极权政治在亚洲依然盛行，其最极端最邪恶的形式存在于朝鲜：家族的集权独裁统治。北朝鲜的存在也决定性的阻碍了中国东北的经济发展，投资不过山海关，钱投在东北就等于把钞票码在2个火坑的边缘：北朝鲜是一个小火坑，俄罗斯是一个大火坑，准备随时被烧掉吧。

中国经济现在的问题不过是历史的重复

 “90 年代中期之后，困扰中国经济的一个突出问题是所谓的内需不足。这尤

其体现在消费需求的不足上。这个严重困扰延续的时间是如此之长，以至于“提

振内需”变成了各级政府官员常年挂在嘴边的一个政治口号。那么，在国民财富

增长“一支独秀”的同时，中国内部的消费意愿以及消费能力为什么反而会变得

如此低下呢？对这个问题，许多人都从不同的角度给出了自己的解释，但“有消

费能力的缺乏消费意愿，有消费意愿的却缺乏消费能力”恐怕是对这个悖论最有

说服力的解释。显然，这个事实所透露出的信息已经远远不像“内需不足”这个

术语那么中性了。这实际上在暗示，中国社会经过25 年的改革，已经出现严重

的分配失衡。而这种失衡的持续之长及扩展之快都显示，中国的分配模式已经在

相当高的可能性被锁定，一个久别了的词汇——马太效应，正在回到中国人的生

活当中。当然，在中国改革过程中所出现的“马太效应”被注入了典型中国式的

内涵：被权力为分配轴心的模式不是将少数人，而是将大多数人趋入贫困的深渊。”

                   -- 《中国:奇迹的黄昏》袁剑 著 2008年

Heilmeier's Catechism

 A set of questions credited to Heilmeier that anyone proposiing a research project or product development effort should be able to answer

• What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no JARGON
• How is done today? And what are the limits of current practice?
• What is new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?
• Who cares?
• If you are successful, what difference will it make?
• What are the risks and the payoffs?
• How much will it cost?
• How long will it take?
• What are the midterm and final "exams" to check for success?

Book Review: The other great game, The opening of Korea and the birth of modern east Asia by Sheila Miyoshi Jager

 I was born in Harbin of a Korean Chinese parents. I grew up with an identity confusion, I felt as a North Eastern Chinese, I have hard time relate to all adjectives applied to China in my geography and history classes: long history, diverse ethnicity, and grand vision. Northeastern China is backwater of the China we were introduced in our text books. The north eastern China we grew up with is a flat and fertile land with not much of history and only several ethnics, mainly Han Chinese (a lot of them migrants from inlands in search of food and security) and some Korean like myself and some Japanese descendants left behind after Sino Japanese war, and in the city where I grew up  occasional Russian descendants (LaoMaoZi). And we northeasterners are like by-standers, always standing on the sidelines envying all the exciting things happened in the Real China. Chinese living in Manchuria feels like they live on the edge of mainstream Chinese culture. And as a Korean ethnics, I don't feel related to either North Korean or South Korean either. Even food we Korean Chinese prefer are different to what South Koreans like. The staple Korean dish of cold noodle soup, we Korean Chinese like to eat with Wasabi plus chilli and South Korean like to eat with a slice of apple and sweet sour soup. Korean living in Manchuria feel like they live on the edge of mainstream Korean culture. 

People live in Manchuria and northeastern China look at the surrounding regions with a slight different perspective  and viewpoint than their peers living inside Shanhaiguan. 

This book is the first book I read that look at the world from Manchuria and Korean perspective. It framed the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria in the context of geopolitical tension between China, Japan, Russia and to the lesser extent USA. Sino Chinese war, Russia Japanese war and trans Siberia railroad were all covered from the perspective of Korean and Manchuria. It also framed the region in the context of Russian ambitions in gaining a seaport in Pacific, the Japanese dilemma of maritime strategy or continental strategy. 

Apple TV series Pachinko also share similar viewpoint, looking at the history from a Korean Japanese minority.